


Ilex Aquifolium

by AcidAngel21



Category: Bones (TV), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Loneliness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:21:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23239135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcidAngel21/pseuds/AcidAngel21
Summary: Earth and the Jeffersonian are strange places to be without any brothers at your side. Fortunately, the team has a habit of taking in people who don't really fit in other places.
Relationships: Angela Montenegro & Original Clone Trooper Character
Kudos: 8





	Ilex Aquifolium

The first thing CT-2542 remembered about Earth was crashing in a blaze of fire and electrical ozone. He hadn’t even had the chance to be Named. They’d been attacked right after Geonosis and he could still feel the scorching sun and cutting sands tearing at his flesh through his blacks. He had no idea what planet he was falling to his death on, but it hadn’t really mattered. He’d been made for this after all. He’d landed with an impact so hard that everything had gone dark in a flash of pain and shock.

He’d woken up in what looked like a very low-tech medical center with doctors who didn’t seem to know what to make of him. He’d said he didn’t have a name when they asked, something in him saying that they wouldn’t take “CT-2542” as an answer. They’d looked very concerned at that and said something about a major concussion and retrograde amnesia. They hadn’t been very happy about letting him go, but he’d forced his way out AMA without too much of a fuss. He’d never liked medical facilities at all; and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance on Mustafar that he was staying in one without any brothers to watch his back.

The first few months had been the hardest.

But nowadays, things were a bit easier. He had a name. People tended to look at him funny when he said his name was Holly, but the Earthians were weird anyway, so he wasn’t really that bothered by it. Getting the right papers had been the hardest part about getting a job, but he’d managed to get citizenship. His specialization in explosives had gotten him a job in a university that paid well enough for him to live better than he had ever dreamed of being allowed to live. He kept to himself, but that was fine too.

As time went on, having to pretend he wasn’t lonely, that the absence of brothers wasn’t still an open wound, became more and more of a gargantuan task. The nightmares got stronger: Jedi falling to his blaster in an unnatural swirl of robes, brothers’ empty buckets and eyes staring into his soul, blaster-fire powered gusts of sand cutting into every bit of exposed flesh, blaster bolts flying by his eyes in watercolor blurs of green, red, and blue. His colleagues had long given up on talking to him, but he could feel pairs of worried eyes crawling down his spine like drops of cold sweat.

On a day when the red-and-blue of blaster fire was sitting behind his eyelids, someone came over. She had the kindest face he’d ever seen, soft brown eyes, features expressive in a way that made Holly uncomfortable, and deep brunette hair so long and flowy that all Holly could see was what would happen if she got too close to one of the vents on a tank or a walker.

“Hi, are you Holly Asteridae?” Her voice was low, and kind, and quiet, and worried in a way that made Holly’s bones ache.

He pulled on every bit of training that was still seared into his skull and was far too proud of how solid his voice sounded when he managed to speak.

“Yes, how can I help you Doctor…”

She laughed, her smile still painfully open. “Just Angela. Angela Montenegro. We found the pieces of some kind of explosive device and we need someone who specializes in that sort of thing to put it back together and tell us how it’s actually supposed to work. I can only do so much, you know?”

Holly’s face felt tight and his voice felt rusted with the laugh and smile that came out.

“I can do that, yeah.”

^^^

Holly had never been to the Medico-Legal lab in the Jeffersonian. He’d never had a reason to, and if he was honest, Dr. Brennan reminded him far too much of the Kaminoans for him to ever feel safe around her. Angela (as she kept insisting he call her, smile still blazing like the Geonosian sun) kept near him, and he wondered if she was Force Sensitive. They said the Jedi could sense emotions, and it seemed like she could sense how anxious (shame citrus peel bitter on his tongue) he was for just being there.

Still, he had been a Clone Trooper of the Grand Army of the Republic. He had faced down Genosians and the Kaminoans and hadn’t cracked. This would not be the thing that split him apart like so much loose thread and stitching. (Stitching on a bleeding wound and the scent of bacta and blood saturating the air and making his stomach turn.) The device was extremely primitive, like most of the devices on this planet, and Holly was done putting it back together in under two hours. Even the eyes that hadn’t left him the entire time hadn’t been enough to distract him in the long run. Despite everything, he still liked puzzles a little too much to be dissuaded. Even when he should’ve been.

The measured steps of a soldier of some kind had Holly reflexively jolting, looking around for a Captain or a brother who would never be there again. Instead (and he tried to ignore the pit that opened up in his stomach in the shade of 501st blue) there was a man with the same shadows he saw in every brothers’ eyes turning towards Dr. Brennan and asking her “who was the new Squint” like Holly couldn’t damned well hear him.

Being talked about like he wasn’t there also wasn’t new to Holly, and that flash of anger rolled off him like waves off of Tipoca’s landing pads.

“Agent Seeley Booth, FBI. What can you tell me, Holly?”

The informality grated against the flash training and made Holly’s teeth grind reflexively.

“It was a very simple device. More designed to scare than to cause any real damage. The bomber used freeze dried fruit as shrapnel and used a remote to set off the blast, most likely the kind used to drive those toy cars. It’s not very sophisticated, but it is effective. And if they decide they want a bigger blast, they could make this a lot worse pretty easily.”

“Right. So you wouldn’t say you needed a specialist to do this?”

“Absolutely not.” Any one of Holly’s brothers could’ve done something like this asleep, blindfolded, and with their hands tied behind their back.

“Okay. Can I get a copy of your notes for the FBI’s files?”

“Sure.” Holly bit back the ‘yes, sir’ that hung on the tip of his tongue like poison.

^^^

Zack Addy was as anxious around Holly as Holly was around Dr. Brennan. Dr. Hodgins was trying to get Holly in the same kind of pissing contest as 2540 got into with 2541 when ‘41 did something that was supposed to be ‘40’s thing. He didn’t seem to like Holly pretending not to notice. Seeing flashes of 40’s face (just like his own, just like  _ everyone _ else’s) on a short, blue eyed, ginger nat-born hurt like walking on a shattered bone. Actually, everything about Holly’s day thus far hurt like walking on a shattered bone.

That wasn’t really all that different from how most of his days had been passing.

Camille Saroyan reminded him far too much of Captain Rex in ways that made him keep looking for his brother. It was a well hidden secret that the Captain was far more aware of brothers hitting their shattering breakpoints than he would ever let the Jedi or Kaminoans know. Dr. Saroyan was clearly the same in her own way. She kept an eye on him, but didn’t try to touch him or get close the way Angela did, or ask too-personal too-invasive questions like Dr. Brennan had the habit of doing.

Agent Booth seemed to warm a bit more as the case went on. He didn’t get too close either, and he was careful to not startle Holly. It was a nice gesture.

Holly missed touch, though.

Another deep secret of the GAR. They were brothers all. And when a brother had a nightmare, there was a brother that would hold them and guard their back until they could get back to sleep. Hugs were necessary sometimes. Being surrounded by brothers in close quarters meant he could feel the warmth and life around him, even when he hadn’t wanted to.

This was the longest Holly had ever gone without being around a brother, being around someone who would  _ understand _ and he missed the tactile affirmations of “you’re not alone, I’m here too” like part of his soul had been ripped out.

^^^

The bomber came to the Jeffersionian.

The bomber came and Holly watched him go right to Angela’s office.

The bomber came and Holly saw the bulge of what he knew for a fact was some kind of gun.

The bomber came and Holly saw something as red as the Separatists’ blaster bolts.

He was on top of the bomber, introducing him to every single painful thing the Kaminoans had burned into his body before he even knew he was moving.

He had the man on the floor and twisted into a position Holly knew from one too many sparring sessions was exquisitely painful.

It was far easier than it should’ve been, given how little practice he’d had since he’d crashed here.

  
  


^^^

The Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab was home to any number of strange, unusual, and unique individuals.

There was Dr. Temperance Brennan whose eyes burned like ice with righteous fury in the face of every evil thing humans were capable of doing to each other. 

There was Dr. Camille Saroyan who carried the weight of responsibility and leadership like she’d been born to do so and who guarded her people like they were part of her soul.

There was Angela Montenegro, the freest, kindest, most compassionate spirit of the entire lab; the soul of the Jeffersonian.

There was Dr. Zack Addy who focused the same as Dr. Brennan and who held his friends and family closer to his heart than anyone but those in those groups would ever know. 

There was Dr. Jack Hodgins who understood who translated the voices of insects and particulates into something that could speak for the dead.

And there was Agent Seeley Booth who took these things and these people and forged ahead, giving the victims of the crimes they investigated peace and justice.

But the secret of these people was Holly. He wasn’t exactly from around the area. In fact, he wasn’t exactly from around that sector. Holly had a huge family. He had millions of brothers who he missed every single day. He had nightmares that hid behind his eyes and in the shadows that sometimes sat under them for weeks at a time. He aged too fast, wrinkles and gray hairs seeming to appear in days. But he watched over his new squadmates like he’d watched over his brothers’ backs before he’d crashed on this Earth and protected them in honor of the fallen.

**Author's Note:**

> This got stuck in my writing brain and I had to get it out. It hasn't really been betad or edited at all. This is all that's going to come out of this, which is a strange and rare foray into the world of one-shots for me. Uncharted territory!


End file.
